Karnataka’s public gets more decisive, winning MLAs poll more than half of vote share

Karnataka’s new MLAs have won their constituencies fair and square, by a vote share of 50% on average according to a report by non-profits Karnataka Election Watch (KEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). This is an improvement from the previous assembly elections in 2018, where the winners polled 48% of the vote share on average.

Five winning candidates have been elected with more than a 40% margin of victory. Among these, deputy chief minister designate DK Shivakumar has the highest margin of 64.21% in his constituency Kanakapura. Shivakumar has also polled the highest vote share of 75%.

Congress candidates occupy four out of the top five spots in the list of candidates with the highest victory margin.

Eight candidates have won by the skin of their teeth, gaining a margin of less than 1000 votes. Of these, BJP MLA CK Ramamurthy has topped the list, winning by 16 votes against Congress candidate Soumya Reddy in Jayanagar in Bengaluru. Reddy has challenged his victory, alleging irregularities in the vote-counting, after Ramamurthy was declared winner amidst a tense last-minute recounting of rejected votes.

Far from rejecting criminal candidates, This year, 123 winning candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves. Of these, 63 have won against a runner-up with a clean background, and 35 have won with a victory margin of more than 10%.

Among the 218 crorepati winners, seven won against a non-crorepati runner up, and two of them won with a margin of more than 30%.

There are 10 new women MLAs this year, all of whom have won with a vote share of more than 35% in their constituencies. BJP’s Bhagirathi Murulya polled the highest vote share among women with 57% votes in her constituency Sullia in Dakshina Kannada.